GRAND RAPIDS -- Marvin Gabrion, the man convicted in 2002 of murdering 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman, is back on death row after a federal court today reinstated his death sentence pending a hearing.

Justices with a federal court of appeals in Cincinnati reversed a ruling they made earlier this year to negate the death penalty for Gabrion, 58.

Gabrion was convicted of killing Rachel Timmerman by drowning her in a remote lake in the Manistee National Forest in 1997. She planned to testify against him in a rape case.

The death penalty comes into play because she died on federal land.

Justices with the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in August said they were troubled by the trial judge's seemingly inconsistent treatment of prospective jurors based on their stance on the death penalty.

Justices also said jurors should have been told that Gabrion would not have faced the death if he had been prosecuted in a state court.

In a petition for a rehearing, prosecutors argued justices wrongly determined that defense attorneys could use the state-court argument as a mitigating factor for jurors.

In today's ruling, justices vacated the August ruling and said they would re-hear the arguments about the death penalty.